SOLVED. YA Fantasy - Teens + 2 old people travel through hostile foreign country where it is illegal to die. [s]

[Russ]

Ok, so I read this book sometime between 2003 and 2009. It's a YA fantasy with the following plot points:

Main characters are from a land that is it's own thing. Some barrier separates it from the neighboring country - I think it was a magic forest but I could be wrong. However it works, there is basically no travel between the two.

The main characters are, I think, a boy, a girl, an old man, and an old woman. They may have a fifth party member but I don't remember.

They have to travel to the neighboring country for some pressing urgent reason I absolutely cannot recall. This is dangerous for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the neighboring country has some pretty draconian laws.

I think our main characters do magic and magic is super illegal/regulated in the neighboring country, but I don't remember the details of how that worked.

It is illegal to die anywhere but at a specific place in the neighboring country. If you do, crippling fines/punishment are laid out upon your family/village. Old people, when they feel it's near their time, do a special pilgrimage to a certain place accompanied by a younger family member. If they die on the way, the younger family member is basically taken as payment for the fine. The main characters pretend to be two specific old people who passed unexpectedly + escorts in order to keep the family of the dead old people from being hit with the punishment when the government finds out they died and to have a cover story for why they're traveling through this country (I think maybe they needed papers to get through and it was a mutually beneficial situation? I don't remember why exactly this got set up).

The illegal to die laws had something to do with magical energy and the draconian magic laws of this country.

I also vaguely remember carved spoons, unicorns, and a roc being elements of the story but I have absolutely no context for them besides a vague mental association.

Thanks folks!

[Becca]

I'm pretty sure this is The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson. I also read it in the early 2000s so my memories are very vague - my strongest memory of it is a magic spoon carved from a peach pit, which can point in the direction they need to go - but this review seems to match what you remember, especially this paragraph:

"Two facts about the Empire should give you a sufficient idea of what they’re up against. First, the Emperor holds the power of life and death over his subjects—literally. So literally, in fact, that anyone who dies without written leave must forfeit his property to the crown. Those who can afford all the permits, the bribes, and the kickbacks along the way, must travel to the capital city Talagh and purchase death-leaves. Anyone else must make a pilgrimage to Goloroth, the City of Death, in the far south of the Empire, and allow themselves to be cast adrift on the ocean before they die. Otherwise their loved ones may be sold into slavery to pay the penalty. Nasty, eh? But it’s also lucky for Tilja and her companions—her own grandmother, plus a blind old man and his grandson from the northern end of the valley—because it gives them a cover story as they journey southward, past checkpoint after checkpoint."

[Russ]

Aaaah yes oh my gosh that's it! :D Thank you so much, I didn't expect to get a response on this! :D

[Becca]

Russ wrote: "Aaaah yes oh my gosh that's it! :D Thank you so much, I didn't expect to get a response on this! :D"

You are very welcome! Glad to help.